Alanine Scanning Library Construction to characterize structure-function relationships (CAT#: STEM-MB-0025-WXH)

Introduction

Alanine scanning mutagenesis is a powerful protein engineering technique used to study protein structure-function relationship, map binding sites and design more stable proteins or proteins with altered properties. Alanine (Ala) scanning is a widely used mutagenesis approach in which residues in a target protein are systematically substituted for alanine at selected positions by site-directed mutagenesis. Alanine is generally an accepted single residue first choice for mutational scanning because it eliminates side-chain (R = methyl) interactions and yet does not alter the main-chain conformation nor does it impose extreme electrostatic or steric effects. Therefore, alanine scanning is particularly useful for determining the contribution of specific side-chains while retaining native and entire protein structure.